


but break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

by exhaustedwerewolf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Vox Machina - Fandom
Genre: Allusions to Dr. Ripley, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dark, Episode: e044 The Sunken Tomb, Episode: e045 Those Who Walk Away, Experimental, F/M, Guilt, I'm Sorry, Illness, Intrusive Thoughts, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Overapplication of Headcanons, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, a lot of coughing, allusions to torture, hanahaki, slightly AU, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 10:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13949289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exhaustedwerewolf/pseuds/exhaustedwerewolf
Summary: You haven't been able to breathe easily for years, but you can learn to live with anything. Almost.





	but break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' because I am officially that extra. Enjoy!

The noise it makes, the noise you make, is a bone-scrape, a blood sputter. You are forever wheezing past it, this painful gorey mass in your throat. Sometimes, suddenly, as if it has been lying in wait, it chokes you- (and you can’t help the surge of panic; _I'm going to die_ ) you double over and gasp and gasp and gasp, ( _I can't breathe_ ) and the sound is gruesome, the scream of someone who has lost their voice, ( _Please, it hurts_ ) you’re breathless- you’ve never known the real meaning of that word before, ( _This is it_ ) and you claw at your collar until the fight to pull in air is overcome with the instinct to get it out and you stain the snow dark. And it’s over.  
  
The iron-bitten taste of oxygen returns. You slump there, panting, and still, it's a death rattle constant. You stare at the stained snow, feel the frigid sting of it against your fingers, and you think; I am going to die. The woods have always been so quiet in the winter. The breaths, torn and ragged, cloud the air, pollute the stillness.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
You limp your way to the edge of the world. The waters thrash and writhe, black as ichor, snarling with foam. The salt stings like someone has taken a knife to your insides; you wake and sleep to that viscera flavour. Between the darkness of the roiling water and the clouds, the horizon is white as teeth-clenching pain.  
  
You walk to the docks to find a boat. You will die. You will die as far from there as possible.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
You never were good at telling dreams from nightmares, just a bit too besotted with the heart-hammering, wrenched-awake dizziness of them, but you know this nightmare as soon as you see him.

But you’re already dead, aren’t you? The ocean roils within you, the icy water seeping into every vein. Dead and dreaming. The ship lists and you can feel the cargo coming loose. Smoke without warmth. Maybe this is Hell.

You reach out. The taste turns acrid.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
Dead, but not going to _die_ , you think, one night, staring at the spiderwebbed rafters of an inn, listening to the breathing of the near strangers you owe your freedom to. Your life to. Dust motes drift like dead embers in the faint moonlight.

You are not going to tell them. Still, when you think yourself back there, your throat closes up and you cough into your hands, turning away politely, raising your gun to mask the smoke.

You collapse onto your side, arching your neck as if you can open up your airways if you tilt your chin just so. As if it's a leash you've strained too tight.

Still, you haven’t quite caught your breath.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
It’s ripped out of you, like so many things; you don’t get to make the choice. The necropolis that was once a city looms and the taste of ash and the scent of death mingle on your tongue and the air is frostbite-black with your smoke. This time someone is shrieking themselves hoarse for your mercy, but you’re can’t hear them over your own fight for just one lungful of good clean air.

Her eyes on you. You feel her gaze in your very bones.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
The world is burning to the ground (again) and somehow she’s the only thing glowing brighter than the firelight.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
“It’s good to want things. It’s very, very good to want things. It’s also very, very good to have things.”  
  
He doesn’t understand, you can see it on his face even in the half-dark, but you are trying to tell him anyway. You are getting better at that. The night air is sweeter for the starlight. You inhale deeply before you go on, and your lungs aren’t quite full exactly, but-  
  
“It’s good to– it’s good to find the things that are important to you and move towards them.”  
  
It’s enough. You are moving towards, and it's an unspeakable relief not to be fighting gravity for once, not to be pulled under kicking and screaming. He listens, and tries to understand.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
Her hand limp on the ancient stone. Her lashes deathly still in the blood red spell-light. You've been dead this whole time and _this_ is Hell, this is your punishment, this shattering of the glass shards, the cleric’s quick, pulse-thrum murmuring, and the shattering reverberating in your bones, in the veins behind your eyelids- it wasn’t enough, it is all your fault-  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
His fist arcing towards your face. You don’t move. His knuckles leave behind a blossoming heat that you barely feel, and you want to, Gods you want to- you have been set screaming for infinitely less, and for more than a heartbeat, you wish it, want nothing more than that clawing, searing agony back, close your eyes and think of deep lacerations, your salpicon beading, dripping, gushing out, you hear him walking away and it wasn’t enough, you’re sorry, you’re _so_ sorry-  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
Her touch is excruciatingly gentle- she tilts your jaw to meet her eyes; warm, concerned, you feel it as you haven’t in years, thousands of knives under your skin, or maybe this time, arrowheads. Torture- the word comes to mind unbidden. The dark hairs that have escaped her braid waft gently in the breeze.  
  
“Is that a black eye?”  
  
You stand there for an eternity, for hundreds of thousands of years, and she looks at you. It’s like breathing in poison. You can hardly get the words out past the burn.  
  
“I couldn’t sleep.” You manage.  
  
She purses her lips, doubtful. Your lungs shudder, and it's all you can do to keep silent.  
  
_I must never tell her,_ you think.  
  
✿ ✿ ✿  
  
You slam the door closed behind you and stumble across the room to throw the window open. Before you can make it, the tremors wrack your lungs, you go to your knees, hacking and gasping as if suffocating, and you’ll never get used to that animal sound. You dig your fingernails into the rug and the smoke blinds you, brings tears to your eyes, your mind is collapsing, imploding from the howling cacophony of revulsion and rue, you ache to flay every inch of skin that she’s ever touched, you must never tell her-  
  
It recedes.  
  
The throbbing in your head and behind your eyes weakens and you focus again on the stone floor, and amongst the ash, there they are. Seven petals, the exact blue of those feathers- you’d recognise the colour, even in death. (You choke back down the bile. You recognise the colour, even in death.) With trembling fingers, you reach out and brush against one, retracting when you feel that it’s real- delicate to your touch. Soft, almost.

There’s distant laughter inside your head, and you don’t know if it’s his or yours or if there’s a difference anymore- but either way, you can’t help but join in. You crouch there as if wounded, convulsing, shoulders shaking- because it is funny isn’t it?  
  
Of course.

Of _course_.

You were a fool to ever expect differently.


End file.
